HTC Touch Pro Review

The recently launched HTC Touch Pro is the newest member of the HTC Touch family. It takes over the mantle of being HTC’s flagship phone from the HTC Touch Diamond, its smaller and relatively underpowered sibling. It is the perfect iPhone 3G killer, atleast in terms of features, as we mentioned earlier. It is a bit bulky compared to the HTC Touch Diamond due to the addition of a full sliding QWERTY keypad. It is a very fierce competitor to the much awaited Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, the Samsung Omnia i900 and the to be released LG KC910. It is very similar to the HTC Touch Diamond but comes with more firepower, bumped up specs and a full blown QWERTY keypad. In this review, we check whether it is a worthy successor to the HTC Touch family or whether it turns out to be just another damp squib.

HTC Touch Pro Specifications:

• Dimensions: 102 x 51 x 18.1 mm
• Weight: 165 gms
• Display: 2.8″ TFT, 65K Colors, 480 x 640 pixels
• Camera: 3.15 MP (2048 x 1536 px) Cam with autofocus, flash and secondary VGA videocall camera
• Chipset: Qualcomm MSM 7201A 528 MHz
• Memory: 288 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM
• Connectivity: GPRS Class 10, EDGE Class 10, 3G HSDPA 7.2 MBPS, WLAN 802.11 b/g, USB 2.0
• Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
• GPS: GPS Receiver with A-GPS
• OS: Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional with TouchFLO 3D
• Battery: 1340 mAh Lithium Ion

Other Features: FM Radio with RDS, TV out, Micro SD Expansion slot, Pocket Office

Design:

The HTC Touch Pro is a nice phone with a clean design, much similar to the stylish design of the HTC Touch Diamond. At dimensions of 102 x 51 x 18.1 mm and a weight of 165 gms, it is much bulkier than the Diamond, mainly due to the inclusion of the QWERTY keypad. The design and functionality is similar to the upcoming Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 with slightly better specs. The QWERTY keypad design is totally ergonomic and a pleasure to handle. It has good backlighting and good key spacing. It is one of the best keypads ever in a smart phone.
The Touch Pro is a shade darker than the Touch Diamond. The back panel is much cleaner and has a slightly rubbery finish which provide for a better grip.

The front of the phone sports the huge 2.8″ TFT display with a resolution of 480 x 640 pixels and supporting 65K colors, the standard for Windows Mobile devices. The display is the same as the Touch Diamond’s. It has superb picture quality thanks to the high resolution used. The display produces bright and vibrant colors with nice contrast. The sunlight legibility is a bit of a problem though, the display hasn’t improved much in this respect. The display is also scratch prone, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem with careful handling and use of the screen protector.

Above the display, there are the earpiece, the ambient light sensor and the secondary VGA cam. Below the screen, you have the four control keys and the 5 way D Pad / touch sensitive scrollwheel, same as the one in the Touch Diamond. On the top of the phone, you find just the Power key. The right side of the phone is empty with no controls while the left houses the Volume rocker. The bottom of the Touch Pro features the miniUSB port for connecting the charger, data cable and earphones. Towards the bottom right, you also find the magnetic stylus slot. The back of the phone sports the 3.15 MP camera and LED flash. It features a subtler version of the diamond-esque design of the Touch Diamond.

Performance:

The Touch Pro is a solid performer when it comes to hardware. It features the best specifications ever when it comes to Windows Mobile smartphones. It is powered by a 528 MHz Qualcomm chip and is loaded with a humongous 288 MB of RAM. The combo of the fast processor and RAM is more than enough to run Windows Mobile 6.1 professional with TouchFLO 3D and around 2-3 apps easily without any sort of lags or delays. It is noticeably faster than the Touch Diamond but still has some problems with memory management when multiple apps are launched. These bugs don’t hamper the usability largely and should be corrected with future ROM updates.

The TouchFLO 3D is as fluid and appealing as ever and has improved performance in the Touch Pro. It has evolved significantly since its first iteration in the HTC Touch. There isn’t much difference in the HTC Touch Diamond and the Touch Pro in terms of software. It is very intuitive and easy to use even for first time users. The Touch FLO 3D interface’s home screen has several tabs – Home, People, Messages, Mail, Videos, Photos, Music, Settings etc to access the corresponding features. It also comes with a new System Status screen which allows you to know the battery status, the network availability and speakrer volume. The Home screen also has a large clock placed around the centre of the screen. Almost all of the basic functions can be accessed through the TouchFLO 3D UI without having to get you hands dirty with the core Windows Mobile OS. It also has a customizable Application Launcher which you can use to set shortcuts to your favorite applications. There is also an alternative Home screen which is displayed when the keyboard is pulled out. It has a horizontal orientation and has shortcuts to the basic features.

Multimedia Capabilities:

The Touch Diamond comes with a 3.15 MP camera with autofocus and LED flash. The camera takes decent, crisp pictures at resolutions of 2048 x 1536 pixels with accurate color representation. The picture quality is better than the Touch Diamond. The camera interface is nice and intuitive and offers access to different settings like white balance, brightness and various modes. Videos can be recorded in the MPEG4 format in CIF (352 x 288 px) resolutions. The device also has a front facing VGA video camera for video conferencing.

The HTC Touch Pro has great music and video capabilities compared to other WM phones. The music quality is good with decent volume, much better than in the Touch Diamond, especially when coupled with a good adapter and headset. The Music Player interface is cool and totally blends in with TouchFLO 3D. It has a customizable equaliser with presets that add to the sound experience. The Music player also supports album art. Video playback is good and the videos can be played in landscape mode as well. The video quality is great thanks to the superb resolution. The Touch Pro also has a FM Radio wih RDS. FM reception is decent. It, like the Touch Diamond doesn’t have a 3.5mm jack – a negative for audiophiles.

Connectivity & Other Features:

The HTC Touch Pro sports a range of connectivity options like GPRS, EDGE, 3G HSDPA 7.2 MBPS, Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP and MiniUSB. GPS reception is top notch with superb sensitivity. It comes with A-GPS which allows downloading satellite data over a data network. It is powered by a very powerful 1340 mAH battery which easily lasts about 2 days with moderate usage. It is a relief compared to the 900 mAH battery of the Touch Diamond. Do note that the battery drains very fast when GPS is activated. The call quality of the Touch Pro is great with good network reception. It comes bundled with a charger / USB cable, wired headphones, an extra stylus and a HTC software CD. You also get a nice leather carrying case, a screen protector and the regular manuals and guides. Another great addition to the TThe brilliantro is the Micro SD slot. It theoretically supports a memory capacity of about 16 GB.

Pros:

• Stylish Design
• QWERTY Keypad
• TouchFLO 3D
• Superb VGA display

Cons:

• Bulky
• No 3.5mm jack
• Slightly Expensive

Final Conclusions:

The HTC Touch Pro is currently the best Windows Mobile phone in the market. It has many improvements over the Touch Diamond, especially in terms of interface responsiveness, screen quality, camera quality and much more. It is a great alternative to the iPhone 3G, Samsung Omnia i900 and Touch Diamond if you want a QWERTY keypad. It surely is on the costlier side but price is totally justified by the list of features.

Our Rating: 9 / 10.